A 2011 report of the institute of medicine estimates that 100 million adults in the US, roughly 30% of the population, suffer from chronic pain (C & E News, Bethany Halford, “Changing the Channel”, published Mar. 24, 2014). Chronic pain by definition involves abnormal electrical spiking of neurons in the pain pathways: peripheral sensory neurons, spinal cord neurons, neurons in the pain matrix of the brain (e.g., somatosensory cortex, insular cortex, anterior cingular cortex), and/or neurons in brainstem. Although firing of these neurons is modulated and governed by many different receptors, enzymes, and growth factors, in most neurons the fast upstroke of the electrical spike is produced by entry of sodium ions through voltage-gated sodium channels (Hille B, Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes. Sinauer Associates, Inc.: Sunderland Mass., 3rd Ed. 2001). There are nine different isoforms of voltage-gated sodium channel (Nav 1.1-Nav 1.9), and they have distinct expression patterns in tissues including neurons and cardiac and skeletal muscle (Goldin, A. L, “Resurgence of sodium channel research,” Ann Rev Physiol 63:871-894, 2001; Wood, J. N. and, Boorman, J. “Voltage-gated sodium channel blockers; target validation and therapeutic potential” Curr. Top Med. Chem. 5:529-537, 2005).
Nav1.1 and Nav1.2 are highly expressed in the brain (Raymond, C. K., et al., J. Biol. Chem. (2004) 279 (44):46234-41) and are vital to normal brain function. Some loss of function due to Nav 1.1 mutations in humans, have resulted in epilepsy, presumably as these channels are expressed in inhibitory neurons (Yu, F. H., et al., Nat. Neuroscience (2006), 9 (9) 1142-1149). Nav 1.1 is also expressed in the peripheral nervous system and inhibition of Nav1.1 in the periphery may provide relief of pain. Hence, while inhibiting Nav1.1 may provide use for treating pain, it may also be undesirable possibly leading to anxiety and over excitability. Nav1.3 is expressed primarily in the fetal central nervous system, and expression was found to be upregulated after nerve injury in rats (Hains, B. D., et al., J. Neuroscience (2030) 23(26):8881-8892). Nav1.4 is expressed primarily in skeletal muscle. Mutations of the gene and its' product have significant impact on muscle function, including paralysis (Tamaoka A., Internal Medicine (2003), (9):769-770). Nav1.5 is expressed mainly in cardiac myocytes, including atria, ventricles, the sino-atrial node, atrio-ventircular node and cardiac Purkinje fibers. The rapid upstroke of the cardiac action potential and the rapid impulse condution through cardiac tissue is due to the opening of the Nav1.5 channel. Mutations of the Nav1.5 channel have resulted in arrhythmic syndromes, including QTc prolongation, Brugada syndrome (BS), sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (Liu, H., et al., Am. J. Pharmacogenomics (2003), 3(3): 173-179). Nav1.6 is widely distributed voltage-gated sodium channel expressed throughout the central and peripheral nervous system. Nav1.8 is expressed primarily in sensory ganglia of the peripheral nervous system, such as the dorsal root ganglia. There are no identified Nav1.8 mutations that produce varied pain responses in humans. Nav1.8 differs from most neuronal Nav isotypes in that it is insensitive to inhibition by tetrodotoxin. Nav1.9, similar to Nav1.8, is also a tetrodotoxin insensitive sodium channel expressed primarily in dorsal root ganglia neurons (Dib-Hajj, S. D., et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (1998), 95(15):8963-8968).
Recent evidence from several independent genetic studies has shown that the tetrodotoxin-sensitive voltage-gated sodium ion channel Nav 1.7 (SCN9A) is required to sense pain. Rare genetic forms of severe chronic pain, Primary Erythromelalgia and Paroxysmal Extreme Pain Disorder, result from mutations that increase the activity of Nav 1.7 (Fertleman C. R., Baker M. D., Parker K. A., Moffatt S., et al., “SCN9A mutations in paroxysmal extreme pain disorder: allelic variants underlie distinct channel defects and phenotypes,” Neuron 52:767-774, 2006; Yang Y., Wang Y., Li S, et al., “Mutations in SCN9A, encoding a sodium channel alpha subunit, in patients with primary erythermalgia,” J. Med. Genet. 41:171-174, 2004; Drenth J. P. H., te Morsche R. H. M., Guillet G., Taieb A., et al., “SCN9A mutations define primary erythermalgia as a neuropathic disorder of voltage gated sodium channels,” J Invest Dermatol 124:1333-1338). Conversely, two separate clinical studies have determined that the root cause of the genetic disorder Congenital Indifference to Pain (CIP) is a loss of function of Nav 1.7 via mutations that truncate the protein and destroy function (Cox J. J., Reimann F, Nicholas A. K., et al. “An SCN9A channelopathy causes congenital inability to experience pain,” Nature 444:894-898, 2006; Goldberg Y. P., MacFarlane J., MacDonald M. L., Thompson J., et al. “Loss-of-function mutations in the Nav1.7 gene underlie congenital indifference to pain in multiple human populations,” Clin Genet 71:311-319, 2007). The disorder is inherited in Mendelian recessive manner with 100% penetrance. The phenotype associated with CIP is extreme: affected individuals are reported to have experienced painless burns, childbirth, appendicitis, and bone fractures, as well as to have insensitivity to clinical measures of pain such as pinprick or tendon pressure. Yet sensory, motor, autonomic, and other measured functions are normal, with the only reported abnormality being anosmia (inability to smell). These studies indicate that among the many possible targets in the pain pathway, Nav 1.7 governs one or more control points critical for pain perception.
Nonselective sodium channel inhibitors such as lidocaine, mexiletine, and carbamazepine show clinical efficacy in chronic pain, including neuropathic pain, but they are limited in dose and in use, likely due to effects on sodium channels outside the pain pathway. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic doctors use for minor surgery. So is the dentists office staple novocaine. But these compounds don't distinguish between the various sodium channel subtypes, making them unsuitable for use as systemic pain killers. “If you give a drug that blocks Nav1.7 but also blocks Nav1.5, the patient will die of heart failure,” says Glenn F. King, a professor at Australia's University of Queensland who studies venoms that block ion channels. “It will be a completely painless death, but the patient will die nonetheless.” Thus, selectivity for Nav1.7 is desired, particularly over Nav1.5. Researchers have tailored their efforts to find a molecule that inhibitors or block the activity of only Nav 1.7. To compound this problem, the identity, every location, every function and/or the tertiary structures of each subtype of voltage gated sodium channel proteins are not known or completely understood.
Consequently, a number of researchers are attempting to identify small molecule inhibitors of Nav1.7. For example, Chafeev et al disclose spiro-oxindole compound for the treatment and/or prevention of sodium channel-mediated diseases, such as pain, in U.S. Pat. No. 8,101,647. Thus, there is a need to identify Nav 1.7 inhibitors selective over at least Nav 1.5 to treat pain. The present invention provides compounds that are selective inhibitors of Nav 1.7, over at least Nav 1.5.
International Publications WO 2012/007868 and WO 2009/065406 disclose sulfonamide derivatives which are different from the sulfonamide derivatives of the present invention.